ETHNIC RETURN MIGRATION - AN ESTONIAN CASE

Recently there has been growing interest among scholars in ethnic retu rn migration. This article examines return migration during the post W orld War 2 period of descendants of Estonians who emigrated to Russia at the end of the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth cen tury. A case of return migration of West-Siberian Estonians from the O msk province is used as an example. Structuration theory is adopted an d return migration is treated as a behavioural norm that evolves, spre ads and becomes embedded within an ethnic minority living outside its homeland. The research shows that in the case of West-Siberian Estonia ns the main carrier of the migration behavioural norm is a generation. The behavioural norm of Estonians born in the 1910s-1920s has been re turn migration to Estonia, while the migration behaviour of the 1930s- 1940s and the 1950s-1960s generations can be characterized by urbaniza tion in West Siberia. Behind these inter-generational differences in m igration behaviour bn be found the different socialization of the gene rations, appearing largely on the level of practical consciousness. Th e results give reason to assume that ethnic return migration over a lo ng period depends neither directly nor indirectly on momentary environ mental changes, but rather on changes in people's values, habits, iden tity etc., which in the case of an ethnic minority living outside its historical homeland may be followed generation by generation.